Delhi-Amritsar in 4 hours within 3 months: Gadkari

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said the government would, in the next two to three months, start express highways that would considerably cut travel time between key cities.

"Delhi to Dehradun takes seven to eight hours by road today. But in two to three months, we are going to start our express highways which will reduce travel time from Delhi to Dehradun to two hours; from Delhi to Jaipur to two hours; from Delhi to Amritsar to four hours; from Chennai to Bengaluru to two hours; from Bengaluru to Mysuru to one hour; and from Mumbai to Delhi to 12 hours by car," said Gadkari, addressing the seventh International Conference on Soaps, Detergents and Cosmetics here today.

Gadkari said a robust road network would bring India's high logistics cost down.

The Union Minister, known for high delivery in his sector, said the challenge of Indian exports was our high logistics cost -- 14-16 per cent of the GDP as against China's 8 per cent and European Union and USA's 12 per cent.

In two years, our logistics cost will reduce from 16 to 9 per cent of the GDP, he said adding that the government was working on four pillars of infrastructure -- water, power, transport and communication and the focus in the transport sector was increasingly shifting to the use of alternative fuel and biogas.

Noting that India's fossil fuel import bill was Rs 22 lakh crore annually, Gadkari said: "We are encouraging biofuels and bio-ethanol is being made from molasses, broken rice and even foodgrain. Sugar molecules are being used to produce face wash, detergents and body wash."

He said the future focus would be on green hydrogen. Gadkari urged the industry not to seek GST cuts saying: "There is no end to this. If we cut taxes you will ask for more cuts. It is psychological. We must understand that in a welfare state the government needs taxes to empower the poor."

The minister said India would become internationally more competitive with logistics cost cuts and asked the industry to work to reduce the cost of production.

"Reducing imports and raising exports is our government's intention. Today, there is a lot of discussion on import tariffs and we have to reduce production cost to sharpen our global competitiveness," the minister added.